


Over and Out

by PercyByssheShelley



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Childbirth, Gen, Necessary Original Characters - Freeform, Skoobs, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PercyByssheShelley/pseuds/PercyByssheShelley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maxine travels to Skoobs to deliver a baby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over and Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thewondersmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewondersmith/gifts).



> I've checked 'No Archive Warnings Apply', but there is a non-graphic childbirth scene, and canon-typical allusions to people being killed by zombies.

Maxine was rarely permitted to leave the protection of Abel's walls and watchtowers. Not that 'permitted' was the right word. She was hardly a princess in a tower, railing against her captivity. She preferred to stay inside, where there were so many wounds to bandage and returning runners to inspect for bites that she could forget everything else for hours or even days at a time. 

There were no distractions from reality out here. It was impossible to ignore the way that Jody, Sara, Evan and Simon surrounded her in a tight box formation, weapons by their side. They scanned the horizon constantly, looking for threats that had slipped Janine's notice. Sara wore a bright orange plastic whistle on a lanyard, as she was today's designated noisemaker, in case all else failed and someone needed to lead a horde away from Maxine. 

There was no distracting from that. 

It wasn't a long trip from Abel to the more ramshackle Skoobs, but the tension in the air made the minutes crawl by. It felt like a lifetime before Evan stopped and pressed a hand to his ear. 

"Radio check, over," he said. The Skoobs comms officer had been a radio enthusiast in his previous life, and put even New Canton to shame with his insistence on protocol. 

"Check good! Over," echoed in all five radios a moment later. 

"Abel to Skoobs. We're about three minutes away, with precious cargo." Evan ignored the eyeroll Maxine shot in his direction. "Can you raise the gates? Over." 

"Affirmative. You'll need to hustle though, everybody's jittery today. Out." 

Maxine tapped her own radio. "Can I get an update on the patient?" 

There was a long silence, then a sigh. "Are you finished? Over."

Oh, somebody was getting vaccinated with the big needle next time. "Can I get an update on the patient. Over."

"Cady's pretty chill, the contractions are ten minutes apart and she's got a nice stack of magazines. It's Red that we're all worried about. Out." 

...

Red met them just inside the gates, leaning against the wheelbarrow full of items Skoobs was trading for Maxine's expertise. At a glance she could see a bucket full of mobile phones, a stack of books and a punnet of what she chose to assume were tomato seedlings. 

Red was the closest thing Skoobs had to a doctor. She was barely out of school, with a St. George's Award as her only qualification. But she was handy with first aid, and took well to Maxine's attempts to teach her more via the radio. This was the first time Maxine had seen her face, and her heart ached when she saw a skinny girl in cutoff denim overalls, her hair pulled back with a red bandanna. 

The Abel runners scattered as soon as the gates closed behind them, off to trade gossip with their local counterparts. Red grasped Maxine by the elbow and dragged her into the first aid tent. 

"I don't think I can do this. Why are you making me do this?" she whispered. 

"I think that's my line," the girl in the bed looked up from her magazine. Her hair was soaked with sweat, and the intense flush of her face belied her calm expression. 

"Hello Cady. I'm Doctor Myers, and I'm going to be talking Red through your delivery today. How are you feeling?"

"Like an actual human being is trying to crawl out of me." Cady dropped her magazine onto the bed so she could shake Maxine's hand. Halfway through she clenched down like it was a lifeline, and gasped. 

"We don't have anything for the pain," Red said. "Well, except for, you know. Can we give her that?" 

"I don't want anything anyway," Cady insisted. 

"Let's put a pin in that conversation for the moment. Cady, you don't need to be confined to the bed. Why don't you get a friend to walk you around the tent, and Red can show me your equipment." Maxine didn't suggest that they have the baby's father do it. She'd learned her lesson the first time she asked an Abel patient where her baby's father was, and received the answer "Which part of him?" 

...

There was very little advanced skill involved in Maxine's job, beyond her attempts to follow up on Paula's research. What she did was frontier medicine- she set broken bones, treated the occasional bout of sunstroke or hypothermia, and stitched wounds. It was no use being able to identify illnesses she couldn't treat, even the most basic antibiotics were in perpetual short supply. Training up a teenage girl didn't do her ego any favours, but if the alternative was to trek out here every time a Skooby got the sniffles, she could deal. 

...

"I can see the head. Oh my god, I think I'm going to vom," Red stepped away from the stirrups, a hand pressed to her eyes. 

Maxine sighed, grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her back. "You're doing an amazing job Cady. Keep pushing." 

Red took a deep breath and resumed her place. "Right. Keep pushing, keep... oh, holy shit." She flailed for a moment, and Maxine threw herself forward in case she dropped the baby. But when the little man slid into the world, an unnatural calm settled over the fledgling doctor. She held him with steady hands, her mouth open. "That's a baby. I delivered a baby." 

"Would you stop stealing my lines?" Cady asked from the bed, her voice shaking with exhaustion. 

..

 

Maxine looked in on the baby before they left for the trek back the next morning. She watched but didn't interfere as Red checked his vitals. It was appealing to wax philosophic about balancing the scales, about human perseverance and spirit and all that blather. But that felt like tempting fate. Especially when they were clinging to a security so fragile that she couldn't get home without an escort with a whistle to lure zombies away. 

But when Red looked up and smiled at her, looking prouder than if she'd invented childbirth itself, Maxine smiled back.


End file.
